A method of making available to a printer an application program for a document written in any page description language (PDL) by programming the printer to download the program through the Internet before using the program to print the document.
Documents can be written in any one of a number of page description languages, each one being optimized for a different type of use. Two examples are PCL and PostScript.
Printers may have a number of these application programs stored in memory or on an internal hard disk, and so can directly print most documents submitted to them. However, they may be incapable of printing a page in any other language. Adding languages to the printer, either as part of the initial purchase, or as an add-on later, would adversely affect the price. What would be advantageous in a printer would be a system for adapting a printer so that it would be able to get any program on demand as the need arises.